Tom Benson was the picture of contentment on the sideline
at training camp Monday. Resplendent in a seersucker suit with wife Gayle by
his side, the New Orleans Saints' owner looked like the happiest, healthiest
86-year-old in town as he watched his beloved football team dart through drills
at the indoor training facility.

By camp standards, Monday's workout was an intimate one. It
was closed to the public so the only non-Saints personnel in the building were
a pod of local reporters and a friendly pack of VIP season-ticket holders.

It was 120 minutes of near perfect conditions for the Saints
and their media-shy owner. Football, focus and family dominated the day.

This is how it's been throughout the first 10 days of Saints
training camp. For the first time in a long time, they are operating under the
radar and out of the national spotlight.

"It's refreshing," right tackle Zack Strief said. "It's nice
to just be able to focus on your job and not have to deal with all of the other
stuff."

The Saints were in the limelight for all the wrong reasons
last season. The distractions and discipline from the Bounty scandal clearly
took its toll on the team, which stumbled to a dispiriting 7-9 finish.

Consequently, the NFL eyes have turned elsewhere this
August.

They are in Philadelphia, where coach Chip Kelly is
installing a fastbreak offense and Riley Cooper is on mandatory vacation after uttering a racial slur.

They are in Denver, where Peyton Manning is trying to return
Super Bowl glory to the Front Range.

And they are on the West
Coast, where Seattle and San Francisco have formed an NFC power axis along Interstate 5.

Otherwise, the national media has largely avoided Airline
Drive. And that's a good thing. The Saints have performed
their best in the Sean Payton/Drew Brees era when expectations are low and the
focus is high.

During Payton's seven-year campaign, the Saints have had
only two preseasons so similarly uneventful. In his first season, the Saints
were the unanimous pick to finish last in the NFC South and hardly registered a
blip on the national preseason radar.

Three years later, their prospects were so modest that
Sports Illustrated's Peter King ranked them 24th in the 32-team
league to start the season.

In both 2006 and 2009 the Saints burst from relative
obscurity to 3-0 starts. One year resulted in an NFC championship game
appearance; the other a Super Bowl title.

This doesn't mean you should book your tickets for Super
Bowl XLVIII in the Big Apple. But the businesslike approach the Saints have
taken this offseason is a sound, welcome and potentially successful strategy
after the pomp and circumstance of previous campaigns.

"This the message has been, 'Let's work. Let's let that be
the focus,'" Streif said. "It's football all day and all night."

In March, Payton talked about going back to basics, about
wiping the slate clean and starting from scratch like he did when he took the
helm in 2006. While many focused on his absence as the primary reason behind
the club's poor showing, he noticed the slippage in fundamentals and attention
to detail.

There was a perception in some corners that Payton would
attack his first season back with anger and defiance as motivational fuel.

Instead, Payton wisely has channeled his energy in the
proper places, where his expertise is most needed. On the field. In the game
plan. And between the ears of his players.

The businesslike approach was evident at Monday's workout.
The practice was extraordinarily quiet by NFL practice standards. Only the
intermittent sounds of pads popping and whistles blowing interrupted the otherwise
library-like conditions. That's not to say it wasn't intense. But the focus
clearly was on learning and executing. And the edge that was missing a year ago
was back in the building. Maybe that's why Brees played coy on
the first day of camp when someone asked him if the NFL was "sleeping on the
Saints."